Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Anastasia Ordinyan
[REGNUM] On Tuesday, 53-year-old Altai ex-official Vitaly Manishin confessed to the murder of ten more girls. It is believed that he is the famous “Barnaul maniac”, who massacred female students and applicants. But investigators took up this case again only 23 years later, after law enforcement agencies detained Manishin in May 2023 on another case.
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Suspicion fell on him for the murder of a girl committed back in 1989. The body was found in the village of Zelenaya Dubrava, Rodinsky district, and the last person to see her was Vitaly, who was 19 years old at that time. Now an adult man has confessed to the murder of a minor coupled with rape. When checking the testimony on the spot, he spoke in detail about what happened.
And at the same time he confessed to the murder of five more female applicants who planned to enter the Altai Polytechnic in the summer of 2000. A little later, he reported the massacre of the other four students. Now the number of victims has increased to twenty. The maniac, who was searched for a long time but was not found, will finally answer for his crimes. It's just a pity that it happened so late.
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES
In 2000, in Barnaul, students and applicants began to disappear one by one, and precisely those who entered Altai State Technical University. The remains of the girls began to be found in the vicinity of the village of Buranovo, Altai Territory, but it was not possible to catch the criminal. The high-profile case began to become overgrown with rumors, becoming something of an urban legend.
Initially, the investigation accused local merchant Alexander Anisimov of the murders, but he died during the investigative experiment. And later the police began to doubt his guilt.
But the authorities did not pay attention to Manishin, although he managed to “get noticed” in the case of the missing girls. It was only in 2016 that it was put into development, but it took investigators six years to arrest the killer.
Vitaly himself comes from the village of Zelenaya Dubrava, Rodinsky district, Altai Territory. In the 90s, he graduated from the same Altai Technical State University and got a job at Shadrinskoye LLC as chief veterinarian. Later, the man became deputy head of the Kalman district administration.
It all started with the fact that 16-year-old Yulia Tekhnikova went to the university with documents at the insistence of her parents. But, upon entering the university building for the first time, the girl disappeared. By evening, the father and mother sounded the alarm and went to the police, but they did not attach any importance to the incident, limiting themselves to a reply, saying that your daughter is one of those who runs away with friends and will return soon.
The mother of 16-year-old Liliana Voznyuk received a similar response. The girl disappeared a month after Yulia - on July 28, 2000. And literally four days later, “Black Tuesdays” began at the Altai university - girls began to disappear every week. So, on August 1, Olga Shmakova, who came to Altai State Technical University to find out the results of the entrance exams, disappeared.
According to eyewitnesses, a certain man approached the girls near the university and offered them his services and help with admission. Then the deputy head of the Investigative Directorate for the Altai Territory, Roman Shapoval, said that all the victims were 16-17 years old. The appearance of all the girls was completely different; they were all connected by only one thing - the place of their disappearance, the area of the university where they entered.
BARNAUL IS TERRIFIED
Due to the emergency situation at AltSTU, it was decided to strengthen security, but this did not help, and the girls continued to disappear. Moreover, this did not happen somewhere in a remote park at night, but in the morning and daytime. And the young ladies did not go for walks and did not look for adventures, each had an important task - to draw up documents, fill out forms, resolve issues with translation.
Despite the same age and place of disappearance of the girls, the criminal cases were not combined into a series; the investigators of that time did not see any unifying factors. Or perhaps, as journalists suggested, the local administration did not want to make a fuss on the eve of the city day celebrations.
In addition, the police initially did not agree with the information about the maniac. The first official version was the work of a gang of pimps who were operating in the region at that time. We decided to fish with live bait, with the help of female cadets from the local police school. But the criminal ignored all the cadets and chose Ksenia Kirgizova, the daughter of a businessman from Biysk.
It was only when her father made a big fuss that the connection between the crimes was miraculously discovered and the police began to take active action. Hundreds of people searched for the missing absolutely everywhere - in the basements of Barnaul houses, local forests, as well as on the banks and bottom of the Ob. Often the same place was examined twice. Families mired in grief even involved psychics and healers in the search for the disappeared - the police, among other things, worked out their “paranormal” versions.
So the end of August passed. Already at the beginning of September, the first significant clue appeared - not far from the village of Yuzhny, they found a bag with Ksenia’s things, which were torn at the seams. There was also a girl’s notebook and a map of the university. The search for the body began.
But the body of Angela Burdakova was found first ; on October 1, a shepherd came across it - it was located 40 kilometers from Barnaul, in a forest belt in the Kalmansky district. The student was the fourth victim in a series of disappearances. And a little later they found the remains of Kirgizova, they were nearby, under the branches. Genetic testing helped determine the identity of the remains.
A month later, local residents discovered human remains near the village of Buranovo, 20 kilometers from Yuzhny. The bodies of three more girls who disappeared in Barnaul back in 1998–1999 were also found there. The creepy cemetery was located not far from the road, in small thickets and in a ravine. In 2001, Olga Shmakova and Yulia Tekhtiekova were found not far from the same road, and in 2002 Liliana Voznyuk.
FIRST SUSPECTS
Investigators were betting that the suspect was definitely an adult male. Moreover, the one who could freely approach the girls and not arouse suspicion. In addition, he must know the territory of the educational institution well. The candidates were: some characters introduced themselves as deans, heads of departments, and so on, just to get to know each other. There were a lot of them, but they were weeded out by checking their alibis.
The main suspect was a trader at the local market, Alexander Anisimov, a 45-year-old family man, father of three children. According to one of the students, she saw him during the admissions committee at the university; he introduced himself as the dean and allegedly offered assistance in admission. The girl shared her observations with the police.
Already in October 2000, Anisimov was arrested. He denied everything. But later several more AltSTU students pointed it out. His criminal past played against the man; he had already served a sentence for theft and “hooliganism.”
Soon the suspect himself confessed to the crimes and even promised to show where he hid the earrings of one of the victims. According to him, he killed for the purpose of robbery. But the investigative experiment ended disastrously - the man asked to unfasten the handcuffs and then jumped out of the 9th floor window.
And while the operatives were trying to “split” Anisimov, another suspect appeared - one of the university teachers, who, shortly before the disappearance of the students, separated from his wife. The reason for the divorce was that he broke his wife’s arm during intimacy. At the same time, the couple had a daughter, who, in the midst of searching for the maniac, found obscene photographs and bloody clothes in her father’s garage.
However, it quickly became clear that this man had nothing to do with the disappearance of the girls. For each of the days he was missing, he had a cast-iron alibi. And all the intimate photographs and clothes in the garage belonged to his wife.
In December 2000, Vladimir Rushailo, who at that time served as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, came to Barnaul for an inspection. Reshuffles and reductions began in the regional police department. In 2003, due to lack of leads, the investigation into the case of the “Barnaul maniac” was suspended.
TURNAROUND AFTER 20 YEARS
Only 20 years later there was a sharp turn - law enforcement agencies detained the real suspect. In May 2023, investigators returned to unsolved cases from previous years, in particular, the massacre of student Tatyana Obidina in 1989.
We had to interview witnesses again, using a lie detector. Everything led to the one who saw her last - ex-official Vitaly Manishin.
It turned out that 19-year-old Vitaly met the missing woman in the company of friends who were relaxing in nature. The company decided to go get a batch of alcohol, and Vitaly was left alone with Tatyana. The girl never returned home. Then the young criminal told investigators that he and the girl simply separated without waiting for anyone. They could not prove his involvement in the crime, and he appeared in the case as a witness.
But on May 16, 2023, security forces raided his house. The man was actually under investigation for about six years. In addition, his name appeared in the case of missing students from the very beginning. Back in 2000, the police received an anonymous call saying that the wanted criminal was Manishin. At that time, no importance was attached to this information; there were hundreds of such calls.
In 2016, when law enforcement officers requested a report on the work on the case of the murdered students, they decided to establish Manishin’s identity. It turned out that there are only two full namesakes in the whole country, and one of them is from the Altai Territory. Thus, the case of the “Barnaul Maniac” will finally be put to rest. In the meantime, investigative measures in the criminal case in the Altai Territory continue.
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